Israel considers the F-22 in Iran confrontation
There is much more. I think cost may be an inhibiting factor at $150 million per jet. Israel may be forced to wait for the F-35 due out in 2014 at a cost of $45 million each. While the F-22 should be a credible deterrent for most rational adversaries, Iran does not fit into that category. It is rule by religious bigots who think they are on a mission from God. Deterrence for them is a very limited commodity. There is also the problem of the necessary follow up strikes after the first wave. Any attack on Iran needs to be a coordinated assault that knocks out not just their nuke facilities but their main weapons for making war. Such an assault would probably take weeks not hours or days.Fort Worth is a city that really lets you know you're in Texas. Described by its residents as "more old-fashioned and laid-back" than its larger neighbor, Dallas, it is home to bars filled with men and women in cowboy boots and hats, listening to country music.
Named after General William Jenkins Worth, it was founded in 1849 as a military camp. It now boasts one of the world's largest indoor manufacturing plants - more than two miles long and half-a-mile wide - which houses the production line for Lockheed Martin fighter jets, among them the F-16 and the stealth F-22 and F-35, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
In the plant, workers ride golf carts from one point of production to another, and finally to the area where wings and engines are fitted into the planes' fuselages.
ISRAEL HAS its sights on two such planes - the F-35 and the F-22 (branded the "Raptor" by the US Air Force), the only fifth-generation fully operational fighter jet with stealth capabilities.
At the moment, there is a US government-imposed embargo on Lockheed Martin, forbidding the massive military industry from exporting its aircraft to countries like Israel. But defense industry sources say the Pentagon might be inclined to change its policy and allow a sale to Israel, due to the looming nuclear threat emanating from Iran.
"Imagine a squadron of 25 stealth-enabled Israeli Air Force F-22 Raptors flying undetected into Iran, opening their internal compartments that carry their missiles and dropping them onto the scattered nuclear sites," one source close to the IAF and Lockheed Martin said. "That is one [mighty] piece of deterrence."
Though the F-22 has not yet been sold to any US allies, in March, Congress lifted a nine-year ban on its sale, basically clearing the path for an Israeli purchase of what is considered the most advanced fighter jet in the world today. (The single-seater, double-engine aircraft achieves stealth though a combination of its shape, composite materials, color and other integrated systems.)
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I do like the description of Fort Worth. It is an interesting city.
Let the Israelis have them. They have the guts and the persistence to carry the job through to the finish. If the U.S. does it, we will immediately hear cries of "excessive force" and "we need to let the Iranians have more responsibility for their own country". Followed closely by a bug-out. We did it once in Vietnam and now the Pelosi-pussies are getting ready to do it in Iraq.
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